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Dessert

Potato Pudding

A baked potato pudding with milk, eggs, sugar, butter, lemon rind, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Potato Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash, boil, and mash the potatoes.

Make the custard

  1. When cool, add the new milk, beaten eggs, moist sugar, and nutmeg.

  2. Mix gradually the flour with a pint of milk and boil until thick.

  3. When cold, add the butter, fine sugar, grated lemon rind, egg yolks, and salt.

  4. Mix all well together and place in a dish lined with pastry.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until set.

  2. This pudding is very nice cold.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the pudding, giving it a soft, starchy body once mashed.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the mixture and give it a firm, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smoother, more tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk when boiled, helping the mixture hold its shape.
New milk
Provides moisture and liquid that, with the eggs, forms the custard.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the flavour of the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the flour and milk until thick. Flour must be fully cooked in liquid until it thickens, because starch only swells and thickens properly when boiled. Undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a loose texture.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, nutmeg, flour, butter, lemon):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, nutmeg, flour, butter, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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